EU and MERCOSUR Create World’s Biggest Free-Trade Area

“[T]he United States is going to be left out in the cold as two gigantic trade blocs, Europe and Latin America, mesh together and begin calling the shots in world commerce.” So warned the Plain Truth in May 1962.

Last Friday, these two trade blocs meshed together, proving that 57-year-old forecast right.

The European Union and Latin American trade bloc mercosur announced they have agreed on a draft of the world’s largest free-trade area. When the trade deal was under negotiation earlier this year, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote, “This trade agreement will impact the whole world! It is going to affect your life dramatically.”

The agreement creates a free-trade area that covers 780 million people, with an annual economic output of $21 trillion. It will cover the four core nations of mercosur—Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay—and will abolish $4.5 billion worth of duties. Over the next 10 to 15 years, it will phase out more than 90 percent of the tariffs that the EU and mercosur currently have on each other.

mercosur typically places very high tariffs on goods produced by outside countries. This tariff wall will now keep out goods from other advanced economies, such as the United States, while letting in goods produced in Europe. Meanwhile, it allows mercosur to sell cheap raw material and agricultural goods to Europe. These are big wins for German industry.

But this is about much more than economics.

It’s about cementing a close alliance between Europe and Latin America.

Revelation 17 talks about the repeated rise and fall of a political power—a power ridden by a woman, or in Bible prophecy, a church. Where have we seen this in the world? The Holy Roman Empire in Europe: It has continually risen and fallen and maintained strong links to the Catholic Church.

Revelation 17 tells us that this power will rise one more time. It will besiege the United States, cutting it off from world trade. For any European power looking to target American trade, Latin America is a vital stepping-stone toward that end. And the Holy Roman Empire has close links to Latin America.

This is why the Plain Truth made that forecast 57 years ago. And this is why this trade deal is so important. This prophesied power is preparing to target America. That reality is about to change the world.